


In The Bedroom Down The Hall

by wylanvanecks



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Mentions of Major Character Death, may is mourning, rip peter parker, tony is mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-27 04:24:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18296780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wylanvanecks/pseuds/wylanvanecks
Summary: "anything for my boy in the bedroom down the hall"





	In The Bedroom Down The Hall

May Parker had plenty of regrets, and fears, most of the latter being centered around Peter. What if she was completely screwing him up? When she had taken him in permanently at four years old, she hadn’t known anything about children. Hell, she still didn’t, and she now had a teenager. Honestly, she knew even less about them. 

Once she found out about him being Spider-Man (She had to wonder how it had taken her so long to figure it out. What kind of mo- er, aunt, didn’t notice something like that?) those fears and worries stayed, but now a whole new array had joined the list of things to stress about when she was trying to sleep. Part of her wanted to demand that he stop and ask Tony to find someone else to put on the mask. Part of her job, however, was to keep Peter happy, and as Spider-Man, he was the happiest she could remember him being. However, she did want access to the tracker in his suit, and Tony happily created an app that would allow her to see where he was when he was wearing the suit. It also let her know if he had been hurt in any serious way. 

On  _ that _ day, however...It hadn’t said anything. No notification telling her that he had literally left the face of the planet, or that he… She only knew something was wrong because...well, he had never come home. She had done everything, she had tried calling him, tried calling Tony, May had even called Stark Industries to try and speak to Tony, but they had informed her that he was gone. Then, however, something peculiar happened. While she was down at the police station to file a missing person’s report, the office she was talking to...disappeared. No, that wasn’t quite right. He  _ disintegrated _ . Right in front of her. 

She returned home, and didn’t leave for an indiscernible amount of time. No one called her about missing work; the world seemed to have come to a stop. News stations had no explanation for the sudden disappearance of half of the population. May never paid much attention to the TV anyway. All she could think of was Peter. The Avengers had to have had something to do with this, which meant he did too. Was it too much to hope that he was just tucked away safely somewhere, helping Tony figure out how to fix the world?

Finally, she could bear the empty apartment no longer. A car ride later, she found herself at the Avengers’ compound. When Peter had started spending a bunch of time there, she demanded to know the address, telling Happy she didn’t care how ‘classified’ it was. He had given it to her, after much arguing. Putting on a face braver than she felt, she marched up to the door and rang the bell, looking to the security cam and demanding to be let in. At first nothing happened, but when she demanded to see Peter, the doors slid open. 

“Who’s Peter?” It took her a moment, but May was able to recognize the man in front of her as Bruce Banner. “Why would he be here?” His tone is soft, almost comforting, but by now, May is so frustrated she wants to scream. All she wanted was her son, at home, safe. Was that too much to ask? 

“My so-nephew. Spider-Man,” she said exasperatedly. Bruce’s eyes widen in recognition at the superhero’s name, but then his expression falls. The knot in her stomach tightens and she fights back nausea. What on earth had happened? “Where is he? Is he…” She can’t even bring herself to ask the question, couldn’t even form the full thought. After everything the two of them had lost, from Peter losing his parents and then both of them losing Ben...May wasn’t sure she could handle it, frankly. 

“I don’t know.” May wants to hate Bruce’s soft voice, and the expression on his face that was half grief, half pity. She wants to, but something inside her breaks. 

“What do you mean, you don’t know?” It starts out accusatory, angry. But by the time she reaches the end of her question, her voice cracks and she feels like the rug is being ripped out from underneath her. Not Peter.  _ Anybody  _ but Peter. He was just a kid. He was just  _ her  _ kid. 

“The day of the snap, when people disappeared? Before that happened, Spid- Peter ended up on that ship with Tony.” May felt like she was going to throw up. She stumbled back, as if his words had been a physical blow. 

“And?” 

“And we haven’t seen or heard from them since,” Bruce admitted, a frown on his face. “Are you okay? Maybe you should sit down? Water, I can-”

“I have to…” She took another step back, back towards the doors. What did she have to do? There was nothing left to do. Half of the world was gone, the rest of  _ her  _ world was gone. Peter...Peter was supposed to outlive her, by many decades. He was all she had left, and now, he too, was just...gone. She’d never get to see him graduate high school, or get into M.I.T. like he had been dreaming about. He’d never get married, or experience the joy of being a parent. A choked sob forces its way past her lips without her permission and she stumbles again. Not even the ground beneath her felt steady. “I have to go.” 

-

It had been….weeks? Honestly, May Parker had no clue how long it had been since she rushed home and locked herself in her apartment. She had enough food (though she had no real appetite) and water, luckily she had gone grocery shopping for the month the day before everything went to hell. Already, the rest of the world was rebuilding, her boss had even called to ask when she’d be back in. But how...how was she supposed to rebuild? She had nothing left.

Despite having been hiding out in her apartment for anywhere between one month or two, there had been one room she had been avoiding like the plague. She had been putting it off but...frankly, having all his stuff in there, and feeling like she could just open the door and find him doing homework or something had become more painful than facing reality would be. 

When she opened the door, her knees almost gave out beneath her. She was right, seeing it like this was worse. Everything undisturbed, as if Peter had just stepped out for a minute, or was in the kitchen getting an after-school snack. She stepped back into the hall and slammed the door shut, fighting back tears. No, she couldn’t avoid this. She  _ had  _ to do it. Had to move on, like she did after losing Ben. But God, it had been so much easier then, when she was able to pour all her focus onto Peter, onto making sure he was okay. 

May grabbed some boxes from the hall closet before returning to the door. She took a shaky breath before opening it, choosing to focus on the creak of them door rather than all of her nephew’s belongings, covered in an almost non-existent layer of dust. She started with the dresser, figuring it would be easiest. She forced back the tears that wanted to fall and refolded everything that he had just shoved into his drawers last time she had asked him to put laundry away. 

When she came to the last drawer, the first thing she pulled out was an awfully knit blue sweater. She had made it for him, but before even showing it to him, decided it wasn’t good enough and that she would give up on knitting. Peter insisted on seeing it and keeping it, however. He only ever wore it as pajamas during the winter, as it didn’t quite fit him right, it looked kind of lopsided on him. Plus, he had at one point, he had admitted that it was kind of itchy. Still, he’d wear it every once in a while, sometimes as an effort to bring a smile to May’s face, and it always worked. 

Everything else, she had planned on giving it away, or something, but… She sniffled and folded the sweater, a reminder of how sweet her kid was. A reminder or everything Peter had been, as stupid as she felt that was. It just… It was such a Peter thing to do. Wear a truly ugly, and apparently itchy, sweater just to make someone smile. 

She stood and placed the folded sweater atop his desk, beside a stack of comics, some taken from his collection kept safely in his closet. May sighed, running her fingers through her hair. She hated this, everything in her despised this situation. Why him? He had been so young…

She left out a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob as her eyes landed on the Iron Man night-light that he always had plugged in next to his bed. They had been shopping for a new bedspread after he had gotten the bunk-bed when he saw it. He had been nine at the time, and his face lit up immediately. 

_ “Aunt May, please?” Peter pleaded, flashing her a smile that was missing one of his front teeth. “He’ll keep the bad guys away!”  _

_ “Oh, well in that case…”  _

She fell onto the bed, a weak sob leaving her. She was a fool to think she could come here, and just pack everything up. May was trying to fix this the only way she knew how; avoid feeling any of it. It wouldn’t work like that. Now, she had no one else to focus on, no one else to fix. 

May buried her face in her hands, her chest aching with sobs that she tried to hard to keep in. She didn’t know how long she been sitting there, two minutes or two hours or anything in between. She startled back to awareness, however, when she heard her apartment door open. She stood, but made no move to leave the room. Obviously, she wasn’t expecting anyone. But, she was sure she had locked the door...The only other person who had a key… Her heart leapt with hope and she reached the doorway just as the unannounced visitor stepped into the hall.

“May?” Tony Stark looked worse than she had ever seen him. There were deep bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept in years, and he had clearly lost weight. His eyes were red-rimmed, and felt a tinge of shock at the thought that “genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist” Tony Stark would allow anyone to see him like this. 

“Tony? P-Peter, is he-” Her voice fails her as Tony shakes his head, looking on the verge of tears. 

“I-I’m sorry, I c-couldn’t…”  _ Pull it together, Starks don’t cry _ . His father’s old bullshit line wasn’t working to keep his emotions in check anymore. He was holding it back as best as he could, but when May burst into tears… He stepped forward, tugging her into an embrace they both needed as tears silently tracked their way down his face. He had failed her, all she had asked was for him to keep Peter safe… More importantly, Tony had failed Peter. Peter, who was gone, dead because of him. Peter, who would’ve forgiven him a billion times over and told him not to blame himself. 

May wanted to feel embarrassed that she was here, using her kid’s mentor and idol as a shoulder to cry on, but she felt numb. Peter really was gone. Her little boy… He was gone, and never coming back. She pressed her face into Tony’s shoulder and cried, ignoring how empty the apartment felt, ignoring that she was currently falling apart, ignoring that the bedroom down the hall from hers would stand empty forever more.

**Author's Note:**

> If y'all haven't yet, I'd recommend you listen to "In The Bedroom Down The Hall". It's a demo from Dear Evan Hansen, and obviously the main inspo for this fic. I just...I was listening to it and I was like "you know what would murder the hearts of every peter parker fan, including myself?" and well here we are. Lemme know what you think :P


End file.
